e. He fixed the sword – the very one which Hector had exchanged for the purple baldric – upright in the earth, and after calling on Zeus to tell Teucer where his corpse might be found; on Hermes, to conduct his soul to the Asphodel Fields; and on the Erinnyes, for vengeance, threw himself upon it. The sword, loathing its task, doubled back in the shape of a bow, and dawn had broken before he contrived to commit suicide by driving the point underneath his vulnerable arm-pit.7
f. Meanwhile Teucer, returning from Mysia, narrowly escaped murder by the Greeks, who were indignant at the slaughter of their livestock. Calchas, having been granted no prophetic warning of the suicide, took Teucer aside and advised him to confine Ajax to his hut, as one maddened by the wrath of Athene. Podaleirius son of Asclepius agreed; he was as expert a physician as his brother Machaon was a surgeon, and had been the first to diagnose Ajax’s madness from his flashing eyes.8 But Teucer merely shook his head, having already been informed by Zeus of his brother’s death, and went sadly out with Tecmessa to find the corpse.
g. There Ajax lay in a pool of blood, and dismay overcame Teucer. How could he return to Salamis, and face his father Telamon? As he stood, tearing his hair, Menelaus strode up and forbade him to bury Ajax, who must be left for the greedy kites and pious vultures. Teucer sent him about his business, and leaving Eurysaces in suppliant’s dress to display locks of his own, Teucer’s, and Tecmessa’s hair, and so guard Ajax’s corpse – over which Tecmessa had spread her robe – he came raging before Agamemnon. Odysseus intervened in the ensuing dispute, and not only urged Agamemnon to permit the funeral rites, but offered to help Teucer carry them out. This service Teucer declined, while acknowledging Odysseus’s courtesy. Finally Agamemnon, on Calchas’s advice, allowed Ajax to be buried in a suicide’s coffin at Cape Rhoeteum, rather than burned on a pyre as if he had fallen honourably in battle.9
h. Some hold that the cause of the quarrel between Ajax and Odysseus was the possession of Palladium, and that it took place after Troy had fallen.10 Others deny that Ajax committed suicide, and say that, since he was proof against steel, the Trojans killed him with lumps of clay, having been advised to do so by an oracle. But this may have been another Ajax11.
i. Afterwards, when Odysseus visited the Asphodel Fields, Ajax was the only ghost who stood aloof from him, rejecting his excuses that Zeus had been responsible for this unfortunate affair. Odysseus had by that time wisely presented the arms to Achilles’s son Neoptolemus; though the Aeolians who later settled at Troy say that he lost them in a shipwreck as he sailed home, whereupon by Thetis’s contrivance the waves deposited them beside Ajax’s tomb at Rhoeteum. During the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, high seas washed open the tomb and his bones were seen to be of gigantic size, the knee-caps alone being as large as a discus used by boys practising for the pentathlon; at the Emperor’s orders, they were at once reinterred.12
j. The Salaminians report that a new flower appeared in their island when Ajax died: white, tinged with red, smaller than a lily and, like the hyacinth, bearing letters which spell Ai! Ai! (‘woe, woe!’). But it is generally believed that the new flower sprang from Ajax’s blood where he fell, since the letters also stand for Aias Aiacides – ‘Ajax the Aeacid’. In the Salaminian market place stands a temple of Ajax, with an ebony image; and not far from the harbour a boulder is shown on which Telamon sat gazing at the ship which bore his sons away to Aulis.13
k. Teucer eventually returned to Salamis, but Telamon accused him of fractricide in the second degree, since he had not pressed Ajax’s claim to the disputed arms. Forbidden to land, he pleaded his case from the sea while the judges listened on the shore; Telamon himself had been forced to do the same by his own father Aeacus, when accused of murdering his brother Phocus. But as Telamon had been found guilty and banished, so also was Teucer, on the ground that he had brought back neither Ajax’s bones, nor Tecmessa, nor Eurysaces; which proved neglect. He set sail for Cyprus, where with Apollo’s favour and the permission of King Belus the Sidonian he founded the other Salamis.14
l. The Athenians honour Ajax as one of their eponymous heroes, and insist that Philaeus, the son of Eurysaces, became an Athenian citizen and surrendered the sovereignty of Salamis to them.15
1. Homer: Odyssey xi. 543 ff.; Argument of Sophocles’s Ajax.
2. Hyginus: Fabula 107.
3. Pindar: Nemean Odes viii. 26 ff.; Ovid: Metamorphoses xii. 620 ff.; Apollodorus: Epitome v. 6; Scholiast on Homer’s Odyssey xi. 547.
4. Lesches: Little Iliad, quoted by scholiast on Aristophanes’s Knights 1056.
5. Homer: Odyssey xi. 559–60.
6. Sophocles: Ajax, with Argument; Zenobius: Proverbs i. 43.
7. Sophocles: Ajax; Aeschylus, quoted by scholiast on Ajax 833 and on Iliad xxiii. 821; Arctinus of Miletus: Aethiopis, quoted by scholiast on Pindar’s Isthmian Odes iii. 53.
8. Arctinus: Sack of Ilium, quoted by Eustathius on Homer’s Iliad xiii. 515.
9. Apollodorus: Epitome v. 7; Philostratus: Heroica xiii. 7.
10. Dictys Cretensis: v. 14–15.
11. Argument of Sophocles’s Ajax.
12. Homer: Odyssey xi. 543 ff.; Pausanias: i. 35. 3; Philostratus: Heroica i. 2.
13. Pausanias: i. 35.2–3; Ovid: Metamorphoses xiii. 382 ff.
14. Pausanias: i. 28. 12 and viii. 15. 3; Servius on Virgil’s Aeneid i. 619; Pindar: Nemean Odes iv. 60; Aeschylus: Persians i. 35. 2 and 5. 2.
15. Herodotus: vi. 35; Pausanias: i. 35. 2; Plutarch: Solon xi.
1. Here the mythological element is small. Ajax was perhaps shown on some Cyprian icon tying the ram to a pillar; not because he had gone mad, but because this was a form of sacrifice introduced into Cyprus from Crete (see 39. 2).
2. Homer’s hyacinth is the blue larkspur – hyacinthos grapta – which has markings on the base of its petals resembling the early Greek letters AI; it had also been sacred to Cretan Hyacinthus (see 21. 8).
3. The bones of Ajax reinterred by Hadrian, like those of Theseus (see 104. i), probably belonged to some far more ancient hero. Peisistratus made use of Ajax’s alleged connexion with Attica to claim sovereignty over the island of Salamis, previously held by Megara, and is said to have supported his claim by the insertion of forged verses (see 163. 1) into the Homeric canon (Iliad ii. 458–559; Aristotle: Rhetoric i. 15; Plutarch: Solon 10). Aia is an old form of gaia (‘earth’), and aias (‘Ajax’) will have meant ‘countryman’.
4. To kill a man with lumps of clay, rather than swords, was a primitive means of avoiding blood guilt; and this other Ajax’s murder must therefore have been the work of his kinsmen, not the Trojan enemy.
5. That Odysseus and Ajax quarrelled for the possession of the Palladium is historically important; but Sophocles has carelessly confused Great Ajax with Little Ajax (see 166. 2).
166
THE ORACLES OF TROY
ACHILLES was dead, and the Greeks had begun to despair. Calchas now prophesied that Troy could not be taken except with the help of Heracles’s bow and arrows. Odysseus and Diomedes were therefore deputed to sail for Lemnos and fetch them from Philoctetes, their present owner.1
b. Some say that King Actor’s shepherd Phimachus, son of Dolophion, had sheltered Philoctetes and dressed his noisome wound for the past ten years. Others record that some of Philoctetes’s Meliboean troops settled beside him in Lemnos, and that the Asclepiads had already cured him, with Lemnian earth, before the deputation arrived; or that Pylius, or Pelius, a son of Hephaestus, did so. Philoctetes is said to have then conquered certain small islands off the Trojan coast for King Eeneus, dispossessing the Carian population – a kindness which Euneus acknowledged by giving him the Lemnian district of Acesa.2 Thus, it is explained, Odysseus and Diomedes had no need to tempt Philoctetes with offers of medical treatment; he came willingly enough, carrying his bow and arrows, to win the war for them and glory for himself. According to still another account, the deputation found him long dead of the wound and persuaded his heirs to let them borrow the bo
w.3
c. The truth is, however, that Philoctetes stayed in Lemnos, suffering painfully, until Odysseus tricked him into handing over the bow and arrows; but Diomedes (not, as some mistakenly say, Neoptolemus) declined to be implicated in the theft and advised Philoctetes to demand the return of his property. At this, the god Heracles intervened. ‘Go with them to Troy, Philoctetes,’ he said, ‘and I will send an Asclepiad there to cure you; for Troy must fall a second time to my arrows. You shall be chosen from among the Greeks as the boldest fighter of all. You shall kill Paris, take part in the sack of Troy, and send home the spoils, reserving the noblest prize for your father Poeas. But remember: you cannot take Troy without Neoptolemus son of Achilles, nor can he do so without you!’4
d. Philoctetes obeyed, and on his arrival at the Greek camp was bathed with fresh water and put to sleep in Apollo’s temple; as he slept, Machaon the surgeon cut away the decaying flesh from the wound, poured in wine, and applied healing herbs and the serpentine stone. But some say that Machaon’s brother Podaleirius, the physician, took charge of the case.5
e. No sooner was Philoctetes about again, than he challenged Paris to a combat in archery. The first arrow he shot went wide, the second pierced Paris’s bow-hand, the third blinded his right eye, and the fourth struck his ankle, wounding him mortally. Despite Menelaus’s attempt to despatch Paris, he contrived to hobble from the field and take refuge in Troy. That night the Trojans carried him to Mount Ida, where he begged his former mistress, the nymph Oenone, to heal him; from an inveterate hatred of Helen, however, she cruelly shook her head and he was brought back to die. Presently Oenone relented, and ran to Troy with a basketful of healing drugs, but found him already dead. In a frenzy of grief she leaped from the walls, or hanged herself, or burned herself to death on his pyre – no one remembers which. Some excuse Oenone by saying that she would have healed Paris at once, had not her father prevented her; she was obliged to wait until he had left the house before bringing the simples, and then it proved too late.6
f. Helenus and Deiphobus now quarrelled for Helen’s hand, and Priam supported Deiphobus’s claim on the ground that he had shown the greater valour; but, though her marriage to Paris had been divinely arranged, Helen could not forget that she was still Queen of Sparta and wife to Menelaus. One night, a sentry caught her tying a rope to the battlements in an attempt to escape. She was led before Deiphobus, who married her by force – much to the disgust of the other Trojans. Helenus immediately left the city and went to live with Arisbe on the slopes of Mount Ida.7
g. Upon hearing from Calchas that Helenus alone knew the secret oracles which protected Troy, Agamemnon sent Odysseus to waylay and drag him to the Greek camp. Helenus happened to be staying as Chryses’s guest in the temple of Thymbraean Apollo, when Odysseus came in search of him, and proved ready enough to disclose the oracles, on condition that he would be given a secure home in some distant land. He had deserted Troy, he explained, not because he feared death, but because neither he nor Aeneas could overlook Paris’s sacrilegious murder of Achilles in this very temple, for which no amends had yet been made to Apollo.8
h. ‘So be it. Hold nothing back, and I will guarantee your life and safety,’ said Odysseus.
‘The oracles are brief and clear,’ Helenus answered. ‘Troy falls this summer, if a certain bone of Pelops is brought to your camp; if Neoptolemus takes the field; and if Athene’s Palladium is stolen from the citadel – because the walls cannot be breached while it remains there.’9
Agamemnon at once sent to Pisa for Pelops’s shoulder-blade. Meanwhile, Odysseus, Phoenix, and Diomedes sailed to Scyros, where they persuaded Lycomedes to let Neoptolemus come to Troy – some say that he was then only twelve years old. The ghost of Achilles appeared before him on his arrival, and he forthwith distinguished himself both in council and in war, Odysseus gladly resigning Achilles’s arms to him.10
i. Eurypylus son of Telephus now reinforced the Trojans with an army of Mysians, and Priam, who had offered his mother Astyoche a golden vine if he came, betrothed him to Cassandra. Eurypylus proved a resolute fighter, and killed Machaon the surgeon; which is why, in Asclepius’s sanctuary at Pergamus, where every service begins with a hymn celebrating Telephus, the name of his son Eurypylus may not be spoken on any occasion. Machaeon’s bones were taken back to Pylus by Nestor, and sick people are healed in the sanctuary at Geraneia; his garlanded bronze statue dominates the sacred place called ‘The Rose’. Eurypylus himself was killed by Neoptolemus.11
j. Shortly before the fall of Troy, the dissensions between Priam’s sons grew so fierce that he authorized Antenor to negotiate peace with Agamemnon. On his arrival at the Greek camp Antenor, out of hatred for Deiphobus, agreed to betray the Palladium and the city into Odysseus’s hands; his price was the kingship and half of Priam’s treasure. Aeneas, he told Agamemnon, could also be counted upon to help.12
k. Together they concocted a plan, in pursuance of which Odysseus asked Diomedes to flog him mercilessly; then, bloodstained, filthy, and dressed in rags, he gained admittance into Troy as a runaway slave. Helen alone saw through his disguise, but when she privately questioned him, was fobbed off with evasive answers. Nevertheless, he could not decline an invitation to her house, where she bathed, anointed and clothed him in fine robes; and his identity being thus established beyond question, swore a solemn oath that she would not betray him to the Trojans – so far she had confided only in Hecabe – if he revealed all the details of his plan to her. Helen explained that she was now kept a prisoner in Troy, and longed to go home. At this juncture, Hecabe entered. Odysseus at once threw himself at her feet, weeping for terror, and implored her not to denounce him. Surprisingly enough, she agreed. He then hurried back, guided by Hecabe, and reached his friends in safety with a harvest of information; claiming to have killed a number of Trojans who would not open the gates for him.13
l. Some say that Odysseus stole the Palladium on this occasion, single-handed. Others say that he and Diomedes, as favourites of Athene, were chosen to do so, and that they climbed up to the citadel by way of a narrow and muddy conduit, killed the sleeping guards, and together took possession of the image, which priestess Theano, Antenor’s wife, willingly surrendered.14 The common account, however, is that Diomedes scaled the wall by climbing upon Odysseus’s shoulders, because the ladder was short, and entered Troy alone. When he reappeared, carrying the Palladium in his arms, the two of them set out for the camp, side by side, under a full moon; but Odysseus wanted all the glory. He dropped behind Diomedes, to whose shoulders the image was now strapped, and would have murdered him, had not the shadow of his sword caught Diomedes’s eye, the moon being still low in the heavens. He spun about, drew his own sword and, disarming Odysseus, pinioned his hands and drove him back to the ships with repeated kicks and blows. Hence the phrase ‘Diomedes’s compulsion’, often applied to those whose actions are coerced.15
m. The Romans pretend that Odysseus and Diomedes carried off a mere replica of the Palladium which was on public display, and that Aeneas, at the fall of Troy, rescued the authentic image, smuggled it out with the remainder of his sacred luggage, and brought it safe to Italy.16
1. Apollodorus: Epitome v. 8; Tzetzes: On Lycophron 911; Sophocles: Philoctetes i. ff.
2. Hyginus: Fabula 102; Eustathius on Homer p. 330; Ptolemy Hephaestionos: vi., quoted by Photiusp.490; Philostratus: Heroica 5.
3. Ptolemy Hephaestionos: v., quoted by Photius p. 486; Pausanias: i. 22. 6.
4. Apollodorus: loc. cit.; Philostratus: loc. cit. and Philoctetes 915 ff. and 1409 ff.
5. Orpheus and Dionysius, quoted by Tzetzes: On Lycophron 911; Apollodorus: loc. cit.
6. Tzetzes: On Lycophron 61–2; 64 and 911; Lesches: Little Iliad; Apollodorus: iii. 12. 6.
7. Apollodorus: Epitome v.9; Tzetzes: OnLycophron 143 and 168; Euripides: Trojan Women 955–60; Servius on Virgil’s Aeneid ii. 166.
8. Apollodorus: Epitome v. 9–10; Sophocles: Philoctetes 606; Orpheus, quoted by
Tzetzes: On Lycophron 911; Dictys Cretensis: iv. 18.
9. Sophocles: Philoctetes 1337–42; Apollodorus: loc. cit.; Tzetzes: loc. cit.
10. Apollodorus: Epitome v. 11; Pausanias: v. 13.3; Homer: Odyssey xi. 506 ff.; Philostratus: Imagines 2; Quintus Smyrnaeus: Posthomerica vi. 57–113 and vii. 169–430; Rawlinson: Excidium Troiae; Lesches: loc. cit.
11. Scholiast on Homer’s Odyssey xi. 520; Dictys Cretensis: iv. 14; Little Iliad, quoted by Pausanias: iii. 26.7; Apollodorus: Epitome v. 12.
12. Dictys Cretensis: vi. 22 and v. 8.
13. Euripides: Hecabe 239–50; Homer: Odyssey iv. 242 ff.; Lesches: loc. cit.
14. Apollodorus: Epitome v. 13; Sophocles: Fragment 367; Servius on Virgil’s Aeneid ii. 166; Scholiast on Homer’s Iliad vi. 311; Suidas sub Palladium; Johannes Malalas: Chronographica v. p. 109, ed. Dindorf: Dictys Cretensis: v. 5 and 8.
15. Conon: Narrations 34; Servius: loc. cit.
16. Dionysius of Halicarnassus: i. 68 ff.; Ovid: Fasti vi. 434.
1. All this is idle romance, or drama, except for the stealing of the Palladium, Hecabe’s mysterious refusal to betray Odysseus (see 168. 5), and the death of Paris from a wound in his ankle (see 92. 10; 126. 3 and 164. j). Pelops’s shoulder-blade was probably of porpoise-ivory (see 109. 5). The account which makes Philoctetes succumb to poison – of Heracles’s arrows dipped in the Hydra’s blood – seems to be the earliest one (see 162. l).